Speedtest.net is a snazzy graphical Internet connect speed test service.
Here are my results from home:
My results from work look as if they are much faster:
But in fact the delay before anything happens (latency?) feels much larger at work, so the office computer feels slower. I don’t know if that’s a DNS issue or what, but it’s very noticable.
Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke solves the problem of finding humor in this remarkably horrible daily comic. At first I didn’t think the explanations were funny, but by the end I was roaring. It grows on you, like a certain type of near-surrealism. (Read at least a dozen before you give up.)
Wednesday’s post was entitled I Quit, which made me nervous, but fortunately Mathlete wasn’t serious.
Mathlete does not, however, explain how it can be that newspapers continue to carry this thing.
My brother has a fun (and pugnacious) column up at Nieman Watchdog Blog bearing the gentle title of On Calling Bullshit:
Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.
What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.
Calling bullshit, of course, used to be central to journalism as well as to comedy. And we happen to be in a period in our history in which the substance in question is running particularly deep.
…
But here’s the good news for you newsroom managers wringing your hands over new technologies and the loss of younger audiences: Because the Internet so values calling bullshit, you are sitting on an as-yet largely untapped gold mine. I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter – whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.
DHS is having a meeting of its Data Privacy and Integrity Committee here in Miami and I am really really annoyed that I’m going to hve to miss this: DHS: Privacy Office – DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Committee Meeting Information
Privacy Office – DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Committee Meeting Information
The quarterly meeting of the DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee will be held on December 6, 2006 at:
Eden Roc Hotel
Mona Lisa Ballroom
4525 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33140Public Sessions
Mona Lisa Ballroom
8:00 a.m. 11:15 a.m.
12:15 p.m. 2:30 p.m.Details of Meeting
- Official Invitation, (PDF, 1 page 118 KB)
- Agenda, (PDF,2 pages 253 KB)
- Federal Register Notice
Public Comments
2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Registration and Attendance
Any member of the public who wishes to attend the public session is requested to provide his or her name by 2:00 p.m. EST, Friday, December 1, 2006, to:
The DHS Privacy Advisory Committee
The Privacy Office
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528Email: privacycommittee@dhs.gov
Phone: 571-227-3813
Fax: 571-227-4171Everyone who plans to attend is respectfully requested to be present and seated by 7:45 a.m. for the morning session and 12:00 p.m. for the afternoon session. Registration is requested to assist in the preparation of meeting materials and seating arrangements. Attendance information, including names of members of the public attending, are to be made public as part of the official meeting minutes.
Persons with disabilities who require special assistance are asked to indicate this in their admittance request, and are encouraged to identify anticipated special needs as early as possible.
Contact Information
The DHS Privacy Advisory Committee
The Privacy Office
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528Email: privacycommittee@dhs.gov
Phone: 571-227-3813
Fax: 571-227-4171
I have to miss it because I will be in Sao Paulo for the second half of an ICANN meeting — it seems I’ve been reappointed, or re-sentenced (I’m not quite sure) to the ICANN NomCom.
If anyone goes — register by tomorrow — I’d love a report.
Via Slashdot | Who Says Money Can’t Buy Friends?, I find a link to the amazing Fake Your Space, a service that for just 99 cents per month will provide users of MySpace and Facebook with all the fake friends they want two messages from a fake friend (all the fake friends you want costs lots more). Yes, impress the other kids with…no, lets let them tell it in their own words:
FakeYourSpace is an exciting new service that enables normal everyday people like me and you to have Hot friends on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Not only will you be able to see these Gorgeous friends on your friends list, but FakeYourSpace enables you to create customized messages and comments for our Models to leave you on your comment wall. FakeYourSpace makes it easy for any regular person to make it seem like they have a Model for a friend. It doesn’t stop there however. Maybe you want to appear as if you have a Model for a lover. FakeYourSpace can make this happen! The possibilities are endless. You can have our Models leave you any type of customized message you may wish. Want to make an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend jealous? No problem. Have one of our Models personally flirt with you on your comment wall. Are you interested in being one of the most popular people on MySpace or FaceBook? Then FakeYourSpace is just what you need. You never need to worry about people finding out about your fake friends because all of our Models profiles are set to private. You may be asking yourself why should you pay for something like this? Our answer to you is because it’s dirt cheap. Our basic plan starts at only $.99 This will give you 2 messages per week for 4 weeks. So for only $.99 you will receive 8 messages that will be there forever, not to mention our Models picture which will show up on your friends list. A pretty small price to pay for online popularity don’t you think?
Amazing.
It's too little, too late.
The so-called “The bipartisan Iraq Study Group” (actually heavily weighted to the right wing, and including zero progressive Democrats) has produced its recommendation. And while they deliberated, Iraq slid into chaos.
The NYT has the leak at Iraq Panel to Recommend Pullback of Combat Troops.
The report recommends that troops move away from the heart of combat (“a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq”). Some day.
But here's the thing: there's no timetable (Chairman James Baker didn't want one),
The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.
That “implicit message” would of course be aimed at that master detector of nuance, George W. Bush.
Uh-huh.
And that would be the same George W. Bush who said just two days ago that, “there's one thing I’m not going to do: I’m not going to pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”
(Remind me again what “the mission” is please?)
The inside-the-beltway politics are clear:
“I think everyone felt good about where we ended up,” one person involved in the commission’s debates said after the group ended its meeting. “It is neither 'cut and run' nor ‘stay the course.'”
No, it's “stay the course” for a while then “cut and run.” With “run to where” left open — maybe to laagers in the Iraqi desert — just don't call them “permanent bases”. (“The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries.”)
It's amazing that anyone involved could feel “good” about this report: if followed, it will have hundreds of our soldiers killed and wounded before the now inevitable departure. And for what exactly? Or even approximately?
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